Octavia Hill, Social Activism and the Remaking of British Society

‘Nobler Imaginings and Mightier Struggles’: Octavia Hill, Social Activism and the Remaking of British Society

Edited by Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell, this is a new collective volume from the IHR Conference Series.

Octavia Hill (1838-1912) was a successful housing and social reformer, providing an excellent example of female leadership in the nineteenth century.  She inherited a strong sense of social justice from her mother’s side of the family, and committed herself to the development of social housing and the provision of open spaces for all social classes. She was also co-founder of the National Trust. The following chapters demonstrate the breadth of Octavia Hill’s achievements and her legacy:

Octavia Hill: ‘the most misunderstood … Victorian reformer’  Elizabeth Baigent

Octavia Hill: lessons in campaigning. Gillian Darley

Octavia Hill: the practice of sympathy and the art of housing. William Whyte

Octavia Hill’s Red Cross Hall and its murals to heroic self-sacrifice. John Price

‘The poor, as well as the rich, need something more than meat and drink’: the vision of the Kyrle Society. Robert Whelan

Octavia Hill: the reluctant sitter. Elizabeth Heath

Octavia Hill, nature and open space: crowning success or campaigning ‘utterly without result’. Elizabeth Baigent

Octavia Hill and the English landscape. Paul Readman

‘To every landless man, woman and child in England’: Octavia Hill and the preservation movement. Astrid Swenson

Octavia Hill and the National Trust. Melanie Hall

At home in the metropolis: gender and ideals of social service. Jane Garnett

Octavia Hill, Beatrice Webb, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–9: a mid Victorian in an Edwardian world. Lawrence Goldman

‘Some dreadful buildings in Southwark’: a tour of nineteenth-century social housing. William Whyte

For the benefit of the nation: politics and the early National Trust. Ben Cowell

 

 

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